from the director | february 2020

Happy February! I am writing to you this month about love. Not the romantic kind of love. I want to focus on the deep, profound, protective love that we feel as parents for our children. Parental love is fierce - Mama Bears know how to roar! This love compels us to sacrifice many things for our children: our sleep, for example, or the cleanliness of the backseat of our car, or extra hours at the office, or a career altogether, and the way we spend our time on a Saturday. Love compels us to watch children’s shows over and over again until the theme song takes up permanent residence in our brain. It’s why we can wipe away and clean up the most stomach-turning messes. We can do hard things for our children because we love our children.

Speaking of hard things, disciplining our children can be another hard thing on a parent’s heart. The word “discipline” is laden with meaning, often synonymous with punishment for wrongdoing. The image of a stern, drill Sargent can be a turn-off when we think of our young children and what they need at this tender age. However, “discipline” comes from the word “disciple.” A disciple is one is who is being taught. You discipline your children to teach them how to get their needs met appropriately. Here’s the good news - you can be gentle and firm when you discipline. Here’s the bad news you may have already experienced as a parent…

“When you set boundaries with people you love, a really hard thing happens: they hurt. This will difficult for you to watch.” Henry Cloud

We don’t like to see our children hurt. Their strong emotions in the face of our boundary setting make us feel responsible for their upset. We falter, we’re inconsistent, we compromise, we ease up to temporarily relieve their negative feelings and our own. In the kindest way possible I’m saying to you, “This is not in your child’s best interest.” What if we broadened our concept of loving our children well to include the topic of gentle and firm discipline skills. Because we LOVE our children, we can do hard things! Check out this month’s “tune into” feature for more…

I love talking about this topic. Not because I have it all figured out, but because I’m still learning. If I can ever be a sounding board for issues you might be having with your preschooler, please reach out to me in the carpool line or send me an email (bhewitt@fpco.org). I’m always open for a conversation or brainstorming session.

“For the LORD disciplines those he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.” Proverbs 3:12

Much love,